


hear the wheels as they roll

by temerity (forsanethaec)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Break Up, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, M/M, New York City, Road Head, Road Trips, Texas, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:46:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/temerity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis gives Niall a lift from New York City to Austin, Texas, and learns to stop thinking quite so much along the way. (Secondary Louis relationships are pre-fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	hear the wheels as they roll

**Author's Note:**

> a road trip AU in which louis is a journalist and he has issues and niall is a mostly homeless musician and they're uni buddies in their 20s living in the US. i didn't mean to write this many words?? if you know me, you'll notice i'm working out some of my own 20-something issues through louis in this; sadly, niall is not my co-pilot. title is from take your time by fun. super thanks to lucy/balefully for the hand-holding and shan/dicktective for the texas-pickin'. :)
> 
> ETA: as promised, there is now a [fanmix](http://8tracks.com/academe/hear-the-wheels-as-they-roll) to go along with this!

Louis gets out of New York after Eleanor leaves him. The city always felt small in a way with her, vast but within reach. Without her it feels stifling. He takes the subway to work and imagines that he sees her on every platform, pale and delicate, her hair blowing around as the train pulls in. So he figures it's time for a change.

His stuff is in boxes in the living room of the Chelsea apartment they shared when he gets a call from Zayn, and he's at a pub three blocks down an hour later.

"You could move home, I guess." Zayn's drawing circles in the condensation from his beer on the bar.

"Are you coming here, though?"

"Just looking at schools. I mean, for teaching posts. I've got an offer from Cambridge already, though, so." Louis gives him an appreciative whack on the arm and buys him a beer for that. Zayn's the only one of them who managed to stay in school after they graduated four years ago. Louis respects that he does it because he likes learning, not because he just doesn't want to face the real world.

"I like the States," Louis tells him heavily. "I don't know if I could do Doncaster again. Even London. I've about as many people there as here."

"I get that. Just Liam in London now, and Niall's fuck knows where. And I'm, like, in transition."

"Where _is_ Niall?" It's kind of a shock to realize he doesn't know.

"Haven't heard from him." Zayn's mouth goes sideways as he looks at Louis. "I'm sure he's off playing somewhere. Maybe California with Harry?"

"He isn't with Harry. Was for a while. Last I knew, he was in San Francisco. Actually, no, he was drunk dialing me from Las Vegas. But that was months ago."

"His Facebook's for shit."

"It's complete nonsense." Louis laughs a little. He appreciates that Zayn didn't want to expound on the mention of Harry the way Liam might have. There are some things better left out of the conversation.

"So," Zayn says, a deliberate change of subject, "you’re still writing?”

“News, yeah.” Louis brackets it with air quotes for no reason.

“Is that still fun?”

He considers. “The pay is terrible. And the hours.” He takes a gulp of his beer and Zayn laughs. “No, it’s good. It’s all online, anyway, so they'll let me do it from anywhere so long as they don't have to pay for my travel. It’s good ‘til I think of something else I'd like better.”

“And... so, Eleanor.”

“Yeah,” Louis says. He’s not sure how to elaborate on the subject. “She's in Brooklyn, I mean, but I don't – it feels like I should try somewhere else for a while. Get off the east coast."

"It's a big city, mate. Big coast, too."

Louis finishes his beer in answer.

Zayn's got dinner with a recruiter at Columbia, so he eventually he takes his leave. He says he's got a feeling he'll wind up in the U.K. anyway.

"Hey, see you at Liam's wedding, yeah?"

"Fucking hell," Louis says. "Yeah. I will."

Zayn smiles off-kilter and pulls Louis into a hug. It feels odd to say goodbye to him; they see each other so rarely that it leaves him with more of a sense of loss than anything, after. Louis thinks as he walks back to their empty apartment that he's just at sea without El to tether him. A few friends in fewer places, and not enough reason anywhere to want to stay.

 

The person he found to take over the lease doesn't arrive until next week, but Louis has packed up his whole life already, couldn't stop once he started. It wasn't really cathartic, but it got the job done. It's midnight and he's sitting on an air mattress on the bare hardwood of their old bedroom. Almost all the furniture had gone with Eleanor to her friends' place in Brooklyn.

Louis gets another beer from the empty fridge and goes back to sifting through emails about sublets he'd sent through Craigslist. There’s an adequately cheap four-month room in Austin near the university, shared with a bunch of hipsters who were friendly enough when they replied to him. Austin isn’t east or west coast, and it looks pretty cool. The Brooklyn of Texas, or so the internet claims, for whatever that’s worth. Plus he can drive there. Google Maps says it's 27 hours away. He tells them he'll be there in a few days.

Later, he's cataloguing the locations of the people in and out of his life as he tries to nod off. Liam, engaged in London, and Zayn, probably soon to be at Cambridge. Harry left in California, remote and inaccessible. And then Niall. It’s disquieting not to know where he is in the world. Louis shuffles more snugly into the twin sheets, feeling sad, and then he’s asleep.

 

He wakes up when the sun rises because he forgot to draw the shades. The city is dawning outside, cool and breezy, pink-aired. He sits on the radiator and watches the sidewalk for a while – thinking about being 21 on study abroad not 15 blocks from here and meeting Eleanor for the first time, about running around in the dark with Zayn and the others in London until he was 23, bursting with how much he wanted to keep them all just as they were. About driving down the PCH with Harry at 24 during five months in L.A. that are only a little more than a dull ache now, worn away by the New York chill. And the texts from Niall back then, about how he was coming over here, Los Angeles, anywhere, how he needed to get his music career going somehow. Sneaky pictures of funny-looking people Niall saw at football games, and unintelligible drunk texts, and how _Liams fucking engaged, man what the hell!! hahahah_.

Niall was always Louis’ favorite person to text because you could hear his ridiculous cackling laugh in your head as you read. He hasn’t texted Niall in months.

Tiredness is a weight on him like a blanket. There should be feelings beneath it, but there aren’t. Louis is 26 now, and he remembers details rather than feelings. El's thin wrist all hung with shadow as she reached for the pull of the bedside lamp, and the crazy way Harry’s hair always splayed on the pillow. Those were the days when Louis thought he was going to stay with each of them forever. Now he thinks he remembers the sum of their parts, like he'd read about them in a book. They don't feel real anymore. He's got the memories, or odd pieces of them, but the feelings are sanded down dull.

It must have been a long time coming with Eleanor, he thinks, if that’s how he feels only a couple of weeks after their split. Harry feels like he happened in someone else’s life.

He makes tea and spends some time before he goes back to sleep cobbling together a blog post for lifestyle, something to remind his editor he’s planning to keep working there before he hits the road. It’s about being an Englishman taking half an American cross country trip and mostly consists of flip comments about driving on the wrong side of the road, like he hasn’t been doing that for three-plus years.

He considers adding something about how he’s hoping to find himself, but really, it's not that long a drive.

 

It's noon by the time he starts toting boxes down to the street. He's just stuck the first one – all mugs – into the trunk of his hatchback, double-parked, when his phone rings in his pocket.

“Speak of the devil,” he says without thinking when he answers it.

“What?” Niall’s already laughing, and it’s so familiar that it feels like he’s right there next to him. “Hey, Lou.”

“Hi. Wow. Nialler. Long time.”

“I know. What did you mean speak of the devil?”

“I was just talking about you. With Zayn."

Niall makes an excited noise. “Zayn's here?"

"Just 'til today. He had an interview. Wait, are you in New York?"

"Yeah, man. Hey, I read your article.”

“What? What article?”

“About your trip.”

“I just sent that in, like, four hours ago!”

“Yeah, it got posted. I follow your site on Twitter,” Niall says. Louis can picture him waving a dismissive hand as though he’s not the weirdest person in the universe. “Anyway, hey, I was wondering if I could tag along.”

Louis slows to a halt. “You’re going to Austin.”

“I’m going anywhere,” Niall says. “I had a couple gigs lined up here, so I've just arrived, but they got canceled and I’m out of money.”

“You’re in New York.” Louis is processing, fingers picking at the cardboard seam of the box he just put in the trunk. “And… I don’t understand.”

He can hear the grin in Niall’s voice. “I’m a rolling stone, baby. I mean, I was in Mullingar ‘til like, more than a year ago, you know, then I went to L.A. to see Harry – I think that was pretty soon after you left.” And it’s a brief shock, hearing it so casually from Niall’s mouth, but he remembers, too, how he'd called Niall after everything with Harry imploded, how Niall had been patient, how it had felt as though Niall understood. So he recovers. Niall’s still talking.

“Then I was in San Fran, then I think I might have been in Vegas for like, one weekend, I’m not sure.”

“I remember that.” Louis grins. “You definitely don't. You called me.”

“Shh, don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know. So _then_ it was Nashville and then Boston until basically last week. Got here a couple of days ago. You are here, right? I didn’t miss my chance?”

“I’m just packing up. You’re still playing music.” It’s a lot to catch up on; Niall's music career had seemed a bit of a shaky prospect the last time Louis knew anything about it. He picks another box up from the curb. “That's fantastic, man. Way to go.”

“I’m _technically_ playing music—” Niall goes indistinct for a moment, banging about with something and moving the phone— “but I’m also _technically_ unemployed.”

“And you want to come to Austin?”

“Great place to do what I do." He laughs for no reason, and Louis laughs at him laughing. "But no, yeah, I kind of move around. I can find work in a new place for a while ‘til they get sick of me, and then I leave.”

“You’re like a parasite.” Anyone else would have been offended, but Niall laughs uproariously, as Louis had known he would. He grins, listening, and shifts his box onto his hip.

“I’m just hoping somewhere’ll wanna keep me eventually, you know?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. It catches him off-guard. “I do.”

“So, hey, it’s been ages, man, I miss you like mad.”

“Yeah, Niall, you too.”

There’s a crash of breaking glass on the other end of the line. “Ah, fuck, I’ve just broke my roommate’s bong. Good thing I’m moving out. So, got room for one more, Tommo? I’ll throw down for gas and all.”

Louis chuckles, and just – doesn't think about it. “I'm sure I can squeeze you in," he says. He’d be shaking his head if the phone wasn’t crooked against his shoulder. He shoves a storage flat in atop the boxes in the trunk and tells Niall he'll meet him in an hour, heart surging momentarily for whatever odd reason.

He calls Eleanor up after, offering her his typewriter, since it’s honestly useless to him and it won’t fit in the car if Niall’s to have any room. She tells him sure, he can drop it off.

The magnolias in Park Slope are in full bloom when he pulls the car up to a hydrant on her new street. Eleanor opens the door dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt with her hair piled atop her head, and he waits for the rush of affection, the pangs of missing her, the nostalgia, but it doesn’t come. He feels a bit of that sense of loss, the one he’d had saying goodbye to Zayn or not knowing where Niall had ended up, but it’s the kind of loss you accept as soon as it comes – the kind you know, or tell yourself, that you can’t do anything about.

“Hey,” he says. The typewriter is packed up in a box, and he picks it up off her stoop and hands it to her. “Enjoy. I know you always liked it.”

“Such a hipster.” She gives him a smile as she takes it, which he thinks is generous.

“Not anymore, not without that thing.” He shifts around, waiting. Maybe they’re on good terms. He doesn’t really know what that would look like.

“So where are you going?”

“Austin.”

“Like Texas?”

“Yeah. Niall’s coming with.”

“Horan? The Irish one?”

He nods. Niall had been on study abroad with him, along with Harry, when Louis had met Eleanor. It’s the reason the three of them had gravitated back here. But he realizes as he tells her that it’s rather a weird thing to be doing, bringing Niall along just for the hell of it. He’s got no clue what Niall’s expectations are about when they get in – where he’ll live, what he’ll do.

“Are you still friends?” She’s frowning, and, ridiculously, the little crease that forms between her eyebrows and the way the corners of her mouth turn down with petulant confusion are the things that make him miss her most, with sudden intensity.

“I suppose so,” he says. His voice is quiet, because he’s concentrating on her face. “He needs a lift.”

She nods, looking away.

“I’ll stay if you want me to,” he says in a slight rush.

Her face is sympathetic when she looks back. “No, babes,” she says, and her hand moves like she’s going to touch him, but she doesn’t. “No, we had our time.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Thanks for this.” She nudges the typewriter box with one socked toe. “Send me a postcard.”

“Send me something typewritten.”

She smiles. "Bye, Louis."

"Bye, El."

It’s somewhat unexpected, but he feels better as soon as she shuts the door. It’s easier – just easier, generally – without her right in front of him. He texts Niall, _leaving bk see you soon_ , and gets a reply as he’s turning the key in the ignition: an emoji rebus of a dude ninja-fighting a shark. He rolls down the windows, smiling, and heads for the bridge.

 

Niall throws himself at Louis as soon as he opens the door to the lobby of his building, flinging his arms around Louis’ shoulders and burying his face in his neck, leaving no space between them. It knocks the wind out of Louis. He’d forgotten how phenomenal Niall’s hugs were.

“It is amazing to see you,” Niall says, standing back and looking Louis over. “It’s been for-fucking-ever. Wow, you look professional.”

“Just because I've washed this shirt,” Louis snickers. “What’s up, man? Throw your shit in the car.”

Niall’s packing a one-to-one ratio of snacks to worldly possessions. His guitar takes up the most room, and a few pieces of sound equipment. He’s got one big duffel he says contains clothes and sundries and a few chipped mugs, a sleeping bag, and a camping backpack carrying a beat-up laptop, several disintegrating notebooks and a bottle of whiskey, and that’s it.

“And here I am with all my boxes like such an adult,” Louis says, watching Niall shove it all into the backseat.

“Nah, my shit’s much more secure than yours.”

“How’s that?”

“You think your mugs are safe in that box? Mine are all tucked in my clothes. You should listen to me, I’m very old and wise.”

“Oh, very,” Louis says, grinning. He pokes at the back of Niall’s knee with his foot as Niall crouches down to cram a microphone case into the footwell.

“Watch it, that’s my weak spot.” Niall hops in a half-circle to face Louis, grinning. “There’ll be no room to stash my body in the car if you accidentally kill me.”

“I’ll pack you up in that duffel bag.”

Niall slams the car door with his hip. “We’d better get out of Manhattan first,” he says, and he hops into shotgun.

There's an anticipation and excitement that comes naturally with starting a long trip like this, but it's tempered by the suddenness of Niall's presence and the circumstances of Louis' going. Having Niall there is exhilarating but distinctly odd, like getting lost in a familiar city. But he's all smiles and laughter that's too big for the hatchback, eyes crinkling in profile behind his wayfarers and it's an easy distraction, and also he's made mixtapes.

The first time Louis remembers to be sad about Eleanor again is when they hit the tunnel, the city falling out of sight behind them, and he realizes he doesn’t know when's the next time he’ll see it, or her.

“You okay?” Niall takes off his sunglasses in the strobe-yellow dark of the tunnel and sets them on the brim of his snapback.

Louis nods. He doesn’t often look at people when he drives, but he’s glad of the excuse to watch the road now.

“You split up with her, right?” Niall tries again after a moment. He was never one for subtlety. “Eleanor. Who you met when we were abroad, right?”

“Yeah.” Louis’ voice feels a bit tight. "Been living with her since I've been here." He doesn’t know what he’s suddenly panicking over – leaving her, leaving New York, just leaving at all.

“That sucks, man. I figured it must be why you were moving.”

“Yeah,” Louis says again. He glances momentarily at Niall, the side of his face lit by brake lights in front of them as he watches Louis. “It just kind of died,” he says, shrugging more gruffly than he’s feeling. “We were always good for each other, but… now that it’s over I feel like I was always filling in all these gaps we had with ideas I had about her, know what I mean? Like, ideas about what I wished was going on, and wasn’t. So I didn’t really figure out until toward the end that there’d been stuff missing all along.”

“I remember you said to me about Harry, back when that all went down,” Niall says, “that you were too wrapped up in, like, each other to notice all the bad stuff. ‘Til you weren’t anymore. Kinda sounds the same.”

Louis purses his lips, letting that sink in. “Maybe,” he murmurs. Niall is silent above the sound of one of his CDs, playing that one Lumineers song, and the rumble of the truck in front of them.

“She’s a good friend,” Louis appends after a minute.

“I know,” says Niall. “Some things just don’t last.”

“I know.”

“You’ll be okay.” Niall reaches over and brushes his fingers over the backs of Louis’ knuckles on the steering wheel. It’s an awkward gesture and at the same time incredibly comforting. It hangs between them for a moment. Louis feels a little overwhelmed. Then Niall laughs.

“Jesus, we had the deep relationships talk, what, 20 minutes into our 27-hour drive?” Niall puts sunglasses back on as the end of the tunnel flares up blindingly in the distance. “Can’t imagine what we’ll be covering by the time we get to Memphis.”

They stay occupied discussing the various themes of Niall’s mixtapes all the way out onto 78 in Jersey City, with the New York skyline shrinking in the rearview, before Louis has to say it.

“Hey, I’m glad you’re here,” he says, smiling with half his mouth as he glances at Niall. “I mean, I’m glad you called. I think if I’d had to spend three days driving by myself I’d have gone insane by the end.”

“Thinking about her, or?”

“Yeah. And… like, what I’m doing with my life or whatever.”

Niall looks down at the Louis' hands on the steering wheel, seeming like he's working on it.

"Course, I suppose I may go insane yet cooped up with you for three days anyway."

"I was going to say," Niall says. His face is sunny when he looks back up. "It’s all good. Whatever I can do, mate. I owe you, for the transportation.”

The route takes them south through Virginia, across Tennesse, then down across Arkansas into Texas. Louis has vowed to get to at least Virginia by dark and then slum it for a motel, so Niall, who is designated navigator as well as DJ, fiddles with his iPhone until he finds a place off the highway in Roanoke. It's about seven hours away. He sets it as their destination and rolls down the window to whoop out at the highway as they roar out under the white New Jersey sky. Louis’ chest is physically hurting with how glad he is for the company. He turns up the music and steps on the gas.

 

It’s more spring the further south they go – blue sky above seemingly as soon as they get out of New Jersey, pastels along the highway in Amish country. Niall tells him stories from his vagabond American lifestyle all the way down through Pennsylvania. There are occasional snatches of mountains at the horizon, but they seem so distant it’s like they’re matte paintings. Louis has never been anywhere on the east coast but New York. Niall has only been farther north.

“Not saying, but did you say you were out of money when you called me earlier?” Louis asks, somewhere outside Harrisburg. “It’s cool if you need to, like, pay me back or—”

Niall waves him off. “Nah, I’ve got an emergency fund for shit like this. It’s not much, but I can hit you back for gas and motels and all that.” He crosses his heart. “Though if you’d rather, I’ll do you a proper fry-up when we get to Texas. Full Irish. Best one in North America.”

“I may take you up on that,” Louis says. He’s fucking hungry, too. “Will you give me the Cheez-Its?” Niall obliges, and Louis roots around in the box as he asks, “So you mostly leave places if the gigs dry up?

“Yeah. It’s kind of spontaneous.”

“D’you get paid?”

“Usually,” Niall says. “And my living expenses are, like, next to zero, since people don’t mind putting me up and feeding me if I’m playing for them, or with them, whatever.”

“That’s legit, man. Wish I could just dick around for my living like that.”

“Oi, I’m not dicking around!” Niall says. “I’m a very serious musician. I’m gonna try to work on an EP next. Know a dude in Austin who says he’ll help me produce. It’s mad.”

“All grown up,” Louis says, pulling on Niall’s ear until he blushes.

It turns out that’s who Niall’s planning to stay with, that he’s sent out loads of texts, though, that he usually makes a gametime decision. Louis is torn between admiring his nerve and wondering if it isn’t secretly terrible, being basically homeless. If Niall minds, he isn’t letting on.

They cross the Susquehanna and pass by several exits for towns ending in Burg, all green-gold fields and gently rolling hills. Niall sees a family of deer by the side of the road and throws some Cheez-Its into the shoulder behind them as they speed on by.

“Did you get invited to Liam’s wedding?” Niall asks as they’re crossing into Maryland.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Me too. It’s in July, right?”

“Right.” Louis taps his thumb on the steering wheel. “Still can't fucking believe Leemo's getting married. I’ve no idea who I’ll go with, I just realized.”

“Me neither,” Niall says. He’s digging around in his giant hoard of snacks. “Hey, we should go together.” He’s grinning ear to ear as he sits up, a bag of gummy bears clutched in his hand. Louis laughs.

“As, like, friends,” Niall adds, just when Louis is realizing he should have said something back by now.

“Yeah, totally. That’d be perfect.”

Niall opens the gummy bears. “I don’t know how you survived all those months we were out of touch. Look at me. Navigator, DJ, wingman…” Louis holds out his hand and Niall dumps about half the bag of gummies into it, grinning. “And snack feeder. Official Louis Tomlinson snack feeder and wingman, how 'bout that.”

“I could get used to it.” Louis tries to stuff as many of the bears in his mouth as he can. The rest fall onto his thigh and into the cupholder, and Niall picks each one up and inspects it individually before popping it into his mouth. Maryland takes about 10 minutes. The bag is empty by the time they’re crossing the West Virginia border.

 

"So tell me about your life, man," Niall says, punching Louis in the thigh as West Virginia becomes regular Virginia and I-81 turns steadily southward beneath their tires.

"Let's see. Where'd you leave off with it?"

"Um. I can't tell. You had... a job."

"Allegedly."

"Girlfriend." Niall inclines his head. Louis kind of appreciates the way Niall insists on not tiptoeing; it's like exposure therapy. "A flat. Who are your friends? You never talked about anyone."

"I dunno. Work people. They're a good lot. Sometimes a bit hip for my taste. But journalists do like to drink, so."

"You like them?"

"Yes, mum." Louis grins sideways at Niall, but Niall doesn't appear to be backing down. "I mean, yeah, I suppose." He thinks about it. "I guess I never had anyone in New York like you four from school, but that's no shock, is it?"

"We all used to text and call all the time." Niall sighs and kicks his supras off in the footwell, leaning his seat back against his stuff all crammed in behind him and putting his feet up on the dash. Louis took his own flip-flops off a couple of hours ago, has been driving with his bare toes curled around the pedal. "What happened?"

"Life," Louis intones grandly, and in the same tenor, "also, your feet smell."

"Fuck you," Niall snickers. He pulls his snapback over his face and talks into it, muffled. "I dunno why we lost touch. I should've called or something. Running 'round too much with too many other people, I guess."

"We didn't _lose touch_. I mean, it isn't just on you. We just... stopped talking so much all the time, know what I mean? We were in different cities. We're, like, _old_ , it's not natural to keep such close touch with your uni mates for this long."

"Nothing you just said made any sense, Louis," Niall tells the inside of his snapback. He smushes up against the window. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere near Shenandoah National Park," Louis reads off a passing brown road sign. "Fuck, it's pretty. Look, Niall."

Niall peers with bleary eyes out from beneath his hat. He looks up at the towering pines lining the roadway, the Blue Ridge towering beyond those.

"Pretty," he murmurs, mouth agape.

Louis chances as long a look at him watching as he can before he turns his eyes back on the highway.

He feels Niall looking at him a few moments later.

"How's Zayn?" Niall's voice is odd, small. The road is curving, and Louis doesn't look.

"Good. He was looking at a teaching post at Columbia, it's wicked. But he says he thinks he'll end up at Cambridge."

"How the hell are we friends with someone as bloody smart as him?"

"No idea." Louis smiles. "He's an educated man. Tolerant of our antics."

Niall chuckles. "Too lazy to tell us to piss off, more like." He pauses a moment. Louis glances over and sees he's chewing on his lips like he does when he's listening, or waiting, or thinking.

"What's up, Nialler?" he asks gently. It's a question he used to ask all the time, just like that, in what feels like another century rather than earlier this same decade.

"Are you scared?" Niall asks finally. "Moving like this. All unplanned. I'm not, but I do it a lot. I used to be, I mean, I was when I first came out to Los Angeles. And for a while after. Not really anymore."

He's babbling, but Louis is busy considering the question.

"It feels strange," he says finally. "That's all, I suppose. Kind of exciting and kind of awful at the same time."

"I'm glad you don't feel worse," Niall says. "Maybe it means you don't mind leaving New York so much."

Louis wants to tell him he's wrong, but somehow the feelings aren’t coming, the conviction to say, _I mind_. Strange to find it absent.

"Well, I only really had one person there," he says. "And all I've done is stick a pin in a random place in the map, like, proverbially speaking."

"Proverbially with Craiglist."

"Right. So you're not likely to have anyone where you're going when that's your method, no matter what. I guess I'll just have to see."

"You'll have someone." Niall's smiling crookedly. "One person. Again."

Louis looks over.

“Oh my god.” He breaks out grinning, there's such open adoration on Niall's face. It’s ridiculous, but for whatever reason it honestly hadn’t occurred to him that bringing Niall along for the drive meant that Niall would wind up in the place he was driving to. Louis feels like all his insides go soft, parts of him he hadn't even realized were holding tension. "That's true. Man, I didn’t even–”

Niall’s laughing at him now, and Louis reaches over and squeezes the back of his neck for a moment, can't help wanting to touch like they always used to. Niall nuzzles into it.

"Just one to start with,” Louis says. Niall beams.

 

They get into Roanoke well after dark, but it's more of a city than Louis is expecting, the amount of lights jarring after an hour or two in the pine barrens at twilight. Niall's giggling about something he remembers from a night of Wikipedia surfing, how Roanoke was a lost colony and they're probably in a black hole and their skeletons will lie in the chamber forever, et cetera. He's picked a Super 8 off the highway near the airport. The clerk adjusts the pen keeping her hair in its bun and looks at them with about as much interest as she seems capable of displaying.

"Just the one night, then? Two beds?"

Her expression suggests there's a right and wrong answer to this question, but Louis looks at Niall.

"Wanna do it on the cheap, yeah?"

"Good by me. I'd sleep in the car if you'd let us," Niall says. Louis has told him he has to draw the line somewhere. Niall's looking around the lobby. "Is there a pub around here or something?"

"There's an Applebee's off the next exit on 581," she says, squinting at his accent. Hers is Southern, but not cartoonishly so like Louis would have imagined. "So just one bed?"

"Please." Louis hands her his credit card and turns to Niall. "You're getting the first round."

"You from Ireland?" the clerk asks like she wishes she wasn't curious.

Niall nods proudly.

"And you're British."

Louis flashes her a smile. She raises her eyebrows like, _okay then_ , and hands him something to sign.

Niall thinks the restaurant is great, thinks everything that's not the inside of the car is great, and his enthusiasm is infectious. He orders them Budweisers and asks for two shots of whiskey to go along like they're in a coal mining town.

"To 20 hours to go!" Niall crows. He clinks shots with Louis and they down them, blinking against the bark-bitter taste.

"Try not to order everything on the menu," Louis says, grinning as he watches Niall turning the pages. "I think all your snacks could probably get us all the way to Austin, honestly."

"I'm fuckin' starving. Is this where they have the Bloomin' Onion?" Niall asks, and in the same breath: "Hold that thought. I haven't gotten drunk with you in, like, three years. Do you want to do another shot?"

And so it happens that they drive the ill-advisedly intoxicated eight minutes home after dinner and stumble down the first-floor hall to their room, dragging bits of luggage, laughing and shushing each other. It crosses the back of Louis' mind to think of old times, but he's mostly preoccupied with pulling faces and making Niall laugh himself silly. He feels amazing.

"I love drinking," he says, after an ordeal with their keycards that basically amounts to forcing the door open. He throws himself down on the bed. "And I love you." He grins doofily up at Niall, who's hopping around trying to get his shoes off.

Niall grins. "Did you lock the door? Reckon they've got werewolves here if they're anywhere."

"No," Louis laughs. Niall is so fucking weird. "Go do it."

Niall disappears for a moment, tugging off his shirt and dropping it on the floor as he goes. "I'd call you sensible," Louis calls after him, "but your reason was _werewolves_. I don't think it still applies."

"Shh." Niall comes back, giggling, a finger to his lips. "You want the bathroom first, or?"

"Come here," Louis says, sitting up on the edge of the bed. "I haven't seen you in forever, the hell, Nialler, c'mere."

Niall steps toe to toe with him. Louis isn't sure what he means to do, but he ends up just mashing his face against Niall's bare stomach, holding him around his skinny waist. It's how it used to be, the five of them not caring, rolling around. Louis doesn't recall having had as much to drink as the half-browned out feeling in the back of his brain suggests. He thinks it might be emotion and the long day exacerbating things, or else the Applebee's waitress roofied him.

"Nah, she didn't seem the type," Niall says.

"Did I say all that out loud?" Louis asks, looking up. Niall smiles, too quickly, his hands on Louis' shoulders, and then he leans down.

Kissing Niall is familiar in the best way, a forgotten, easy way from another life. Louis thinks there's uncertainty there, but love, too, like there always was. It feels so nice to have _simple_. He tugs, shuffling backward on the bed, and Niall clambers with him on his knees.

"Missed you," Niall breathes, so quiet Louis almost doesn’t hear it. He's on his back with his hands around Niall's sides, fingers splayed against the rails of his ribs, propped up on his elbows. He catches his mouth again, gets his tongue in alongside Niall's and doesn't dare give himself time to think about it before he's throwing his legs around Niall's waist and pulling their hips together.

Niall swears, or rather says something unintelligible into Louis' mouth that's most likely a swear. His arms are trembling with exertion where they're braced on either side of Louis' head, palms flat on top of the rust-colored floral duvet. Half the lights are still on, yellow glow and recycled air. At least the door is locked. Louis is half-hard, rolls his hips up, nipping encouragement at Niall's jaw.

"You tell me," Niall says in a slur, "tell me what you want, Lou, I–"

"Just want you," Louis mumbles into his neck. "Just like this." He tightens the hold his knees have around Niall's waist and he pulls him down so they're flat against each other, Niall collapsed against him. He drops his hands to Niall's hips, then to the slight curve of his arse, nudging his feet between Niall's legs so that he spreads them and the angle's better, Louis can feel the hot line of Niall's dick in his jeans, his skinny hips and flat planes of muscles and guitar-calloused fingertips and he's a _boy_ , and it's been a long time. Niall grinds his hips down in little circles against Louis, breath high and thready. Louis moans.

Niall's got one hand fisted in Louis' hair now, the other wedging itself between their bodies to try and get their flies undone. It's quite a lot of squirming and they're both laughing. Then Niall does this thing Louis is used to seeing on a different face, much more recently, where he looks up at Louis through his lashes and then back down, smiling. In an instant, it changes.

"Wait," Louis groans, twisting, "fuck."

"What?" Niall's voice is husky, his mouth kissed red. Louis feels foul from the inside out.

"I shouldn't." He disentangles them, sits up with his flies half open. "I just, with Eleanor, and... and you're my mate, and."

"It's not like we haven't before." Niall shoves his hair off his slightly sweaty forehead. It's true, for what it's worth; there had been plenty of drunken make-outs to go around the lot of them in London back in the day. But that's not the point.

"I'll be the rebound," Niall says, more quietly. Louis' heart drops into his stomach. Niall's fingers find the bone of Louis' ankle, thumbing in the pit of it, stroking over the tattoo above. "It's alright."

"No it's not," Louis says, a bit desperate now. He pitches forward a little, can't help wanting to be in Niall's space after all this time. "It isn't fair," he says bitterly. He's not sure what or who he's talking about anymore. God, he's drunk. Driving tomorrow is going to suck.

"Just let yourself, mate," Niall murmurs. He's gone pink, even more so than already. "Huh? How come you never will, let yourself have stuff? Stuff that's okay?"

"I dunno." Louis doesn't quite understand. There's a lump in his throat, horribly, and all at once he really wants to be kissing Niall again, specifically Niall, not just anyone. "I'm sorry, I'm stupid, I want to. Niall."

Niall nuzzles his nose against Louis', nudges closer to him to kiss the highest peak of his cheekbone beside his ear. He clutches at Louis' shirt, kneeling between his knees. Louis' breathing is shaky. He doesn't feel sobered and he doesn't know what's happening, only that when Niall kisses the side of his face he can smell the cheap cologne he's had forever, since college, right now a faint layer of it like it's been on for a couple of days. Somehow that's endearing. Only Niall.

"Or we can just sleep," Niall mumbles. He doesn't sound put out, but Louis is having trouble following the proceedings. Niall fiddles with Louis' jeans to get them off him properly, this time like a parent would.

"I'm so glad you're here," Louis says.

"I'm glad I'm here too," Niall replies, grinning as he wriggles out of his own jeans. He slides his hands beneath Louis' shirt along his sides, thumbing at the dip of his waist. "Off with this," he orders. Louis lifts his arms and lets Niall pull the shirt off him just to be a pain.

"Useless," Niall says, smiling. He touches Louis' cheek and kisses him on the bridge of his nose, then the corner of his lips, then full on the mouth, and it turns into something for a moment. Niall's like a furnace against him. Louis just holds onto him when they break apart, the comfort of skin on skin.

"I gotta pee," comes Niall's smiling voice eventually. Louis lets him go and manages to wedge himself beneath the stale, rumpled bedsheets, clad in boxers. He's half-asleep by the time Niall comes out of the bathroom, turning off lights on his way back to the bed. He slides a hand across Louis' belly when he's under the covers, head on Louis' chest, curled up like he isn't the taller one.

"What time d'you wanna wake up?"

"Eight – no, nine hours to Memphis," Louis mumbles. "So." He considers. "Math."

"I can show you Nashville on the way." Niall snuffles closer. It's the most amazing thing, that he can be so easy-going after – whatever just happened. It's possible he's Louis' favorite person, objectively speaking. Kind of wild how some things don't change.

Louis gets an arm around him, says something about waking up whenever they call them for checkout. He's not thinking of the sex or Eleanor or the fact that they got drunk in an Applebee's tonight as he closes his eyes. He's thinking of how many times the two of them have fallen asleep like this before, with varying degrees of clothing, and how long ago that was, and wondering if he'll remember much of it in the morning.

 

The ear-splitting ring of the phone at 9 a.m. would make Louis jolt awake if he wasn't cemented to the bed by Niall's starfish limbs. It feels like he's got at least three extra arms and legs.

"Fuck," Louis groans, stretching for the handset to get it to shut up, "Jesus, Niall, you're like I'm trapped in a net."

"What's it?" Niall snuffles and moves just enough for Louis to close a hand around the phone. It's a front desk clerk, male this time, telling them checkout's in an hour or it'll be an extra $20. Louis makes a noise into it and drops it back on the receiver with a clatter.

Niall gives a singular intonation of, "McDonald's breakfast," his face pressed into the mattress. Louis scrubs at his eyes and pinches Niall in the side and stumbles into the shower.

 

Niall offers to drive the first leg today and Louis takes him up on it. They stop for gas between the hotel and food and the highway – Niall stuffs some cash into Louis’ hand, for the tank and the hotel – and Louis watches him having a dance party of one inside the car as he fills up.

Forget all the parts Louis has thought of before – the best part about Niall is that today isn't awkward. Of course it isn't; they've known each other long enough. But Louis remembers enough of what they said last night, and it still feels like taking advantage. Maybe Niall should be making it more awkward. Maybe Louis should stop fucking thinking for once and let it be.

Niall drives with his seat leaned back and his shoes on. He pays for breakfast – approximately all of the Egg McMuffins and hashbrowns available at the first McDonald's they pass, plus some fortifying jet fuel-flavored coffee, in lieu of whatever bastardization of tea is on offer – and swats Louis' hand away as he goes to pick a CD.

"Driver picks the music," he says, grinning.

"That's not fair, you picked yesterday too."

Niall ignores him, giggling and flailing about in front of the stereo to keep Louis away from it. Finally he settles on A Tribe Called Quest and turns up the bass. "Whatcha doin'?" he asks, glancing over.

Louis' got his phone out, thumbs idle on the screen. "Making notes," he says, chewing on his lower lip. "I figure I should do another one of those articles once we get there."

"Never thought you'd be the one who turned into a _writer_." Niall stresses the word like it's a joke, which should probably be allowed given Louis' habit of putting air quotes around most things to do with his so-called profession.

"Hm." Louis is tapping out some sketchy extrapolations on The Culture w/r/t Applebee's. "I suppose I like telling stories."

"You like talking about yourself."

Louis smirks. "Thank you, Niall, that too."

"And you like making people laugh," Niall adds, frowning in consideration. "You're good at that. And making 'em listen."

"Yeah." Louis blinks. "Thanks, I... yeah."

Niall smiles at him, then throws his head back laughing for no apparent reason. He takes his third McMuffin out of the bag.

"Thank god for these things, you know?" he says through a mouthful. "Anyway, hey, you ever write any songs?"

Louis laughs. "Not unless you count making up ‘Autotune the News’ imitations with my co-workers."

"Not even when we were in school?" Niall grins ear to ear, reaching out and pinching Louis' cheek. "Even when we thought we'd be a band?"

Louis squirms into the touch. "The band was your idea, Nialler."

"I know," Niall says cheerfully. He puts his hands back on the wheel. The highway is wide open under just as wide a sky. "I just stay on this, right?"

Louis checks. "It turns into I-40 after we're in Tennessee, but yeah."

"Gotcha. What're you gonna write about, then?"

"I dunno," Louis says. "Was it weird to live in, like, the South?"

"Not really." Niall laughs. "I just play guitar and stuff, s'not hard for me to blend into the music scene anywhere. Food's good in Nashville. Dunno about Texas. They're probably fuckin' crazy."

"It'll be fun." Louis squints at the road. "Right? We'll get, like, big hats."

Niall's cackling. "Buy a bunch of cows, live on a farm."

"Nah, we should do the ex-pat thing," Louis says. "Get an apartment and put the Union Jack and the tri color in the window."

"Framed photos of the queen." Niall's laughing so hard that the car veers slightly. "Oi. Sorry." He sniffs, shaking his head and meeting Louis' eyes for a moment. "That'd be fun," he says. His little smile sends a surge through Louis' chest.

"But you’re planning to stay with your producer guy?" Louis asks after a moment. "I've got a sublet with these random kids.”

"Yeah, and no fucking clue what I’ll do when he chucks me out. Onto the next, I suppose."

"You've turned into one of those people who _knows_ people everywhere, haven't you. You'll just–" Louis waves his hands– "call someone up you met somewhere and crash on his couch until..." he wiggles his fingers. "You float away as quickly as you arrived, have I got it about right?"

Niall grins. “Maybe, so.”

"You've got no shame," Louis tells him. "No shame at all. What about when you want to settle down? Give up this life of crime?"

"I will!" Niall says. "When I find the right place, right person. People." He coughs. "You know."

Louis nods. He watches Niall’s profile a moment longer, but nothing else seems to be forthcoming, so he changes the subject to most and least favorite things about America. They fight over who gets to say “lack of interest in football” for the leasts until he’s almost forgotten what they were talking about before.

 

It’s a couple of hours later when Louis has an extremely silly idea.

“D’you want me to suck you off?” he asks, turning. It seems better to be straight about it. Well. Straightforward, anyway.

“Eh?” Niall raises one eyebrow behind his sunglasses. “Are you kidding?”

“No,” Louis says thoughtfully. “Always wanted to be able to say that I, you know. Road head.”

“Got or gave?” Niall says with a little burst of laughter.

“Does it really matter?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up. Stop resisting.” He can see two marks he put there last night on Niall’s neck, and he’s possessed suddenly with a deep, liberating feeling of not giving a shit anymore. He sings a bit of Drake under his breath, unbuckles his seatbelt, and leans over and unbuckles Niall’s. "Though also, if you crash my car I'll leave you in the woods with the hill people."

"Sexy," Niall snickers. “Go on then, if you’re so—” 

Then Louis latches his mouth onto the hickeys beneath his jaw and he shuts the fuck up.

This is clear rebound behavior, Louis is aware as his hand meanders between Niall's legs, just wanting to suck someone's dick out of spite for womankind or something. Except it's also not, because it's just Niall, and so what if Louis just wants to do this and not fuck it all up like last night. He licks a stripe along Niall's throat, tonguing around his Adam's apple as he rubs at him through his basketball shorts with the heel of his hand.

"Lift up," he murmurs against Niall's ear.

"Fuck, Louis." Niall's fingers are ticking against the steering wheel. He shifts to the left, the side where his foot isn't currently on the gas, and wriggles his arse around so Louis can tug his shorts down around his thighs. His fattening dick is bare to the world underneath.

Louis looks up, pleased to the point of giggling by this turn of events. "Expecting this, were you?"

"Not even a bit," Niall mumbles. "Oh, shit," he adds under his breath as Louis spits in his hand and palms around Niall's cock, tugs at it a few times to watch it fill. He’s given plenty of blowjobs before and all, but not in a long time, and never Niall. He’s rather looking forward to it.

"Eyes on the road." He drags his thumb across the wet tip as he bends down over Niall's lap. "Seriously," he adds, looking up and smirking.

"Not looking," Niall says on a slightly hysterical laugh, which turns into a sharp groan as Louis presses a sloppy kiss under the head of his cock, licks over it and slides his lips down. He's holding Niall still with one hand, the other tucked beneath his balls, fingers moving idly. Niall's breathing is hoarse above the music, still playing at volume. But the car doesn't seem to have deviated from its current lane yet. It's encouragement enough for Louis to suck his way down further, the flat of his tongue rubbing sloppily against the underside of Niall's dick.

He repurposes his free hand to hold Niall across the hips, thumbing at the soft skin at the top of his thigh. Niall's breathing is uneven, his whole body trembling. “Oh, shit,” he goes, and the car swerves. Louis bites into his own lips to keep from biting Niall.

“What the hell?” he asks, pulling off with an obscene wet noise.

“There was a pothole,” Niall says. He’s grinning when Louis sits up enough to look, cheeks ruddy. “Didn’t want you to choke.”

“Oh, what a gentleman. Don’t want to bite your dick off, either, or do I,” Louis mumbles, lips against the side of Niall’s cock again.

“Jesus, don’t even say it,” Niall says. “Ah, yeah.” Louis takes him in again, jaw going wide. “Your fuckin’ mouth, Tommo.”

Louis hums his acknowledgement, drawing off to lick a stripe up Niall's cock before dragging his tongue over the slit.

"Fucking dammit," Niall gasps. Louis chances another glance upward and sees that Niall's knuckles are pink-white on the steering wheel. It’s gratifying, easy to white out on, the ache in the hinge of his jaw and the rawness in his throat as he pushes down lower, and the exhilaration of the car speeding down the interstate around him, of being irresponsible. His ribs are sore where he's leaning half into the armrest and he's hot all over, tingling.

He reaches up blindly and finds one of Niall's hands.

"Lou," Niall chokes out.

Louis pulls off and licks his lips. "Can you steer?" he asks, voice a little hoarse. Niall nods frantically. There's flush across his cheeks all the way down his neck and into the loose collar of his shirt. Louis smirks and draws Niall's hand to the crown of his head.

"Go on," he says. "Since you can't move all that much."

"I can't believe this is happening." Niall laughs, a quick, breathy burst. "Fuck me."

Louis just reaches up and tweaks a nipple as Niall guides his head back down. The car weaves a fraction.

"Mm!" he yelps around Niall’s cock.

"It's okay, it's okay." Niall’s fingers tighten in his hair and Louis lets out a whine in the back of his throat as he’s pushed slowly down. The car isn't weaving anymore, but Louis is pretty sure they're going either really slow or really fast.

He got both hands pressing Niall down at the hips now, little moans pushing from the back of his throat as Niall fucks his mouth. He's completely given up on any thoughts of anything that isn't Niall’s cock, the sounds he’s making, his hand in Louis’ hair.

"Close, 'm close," Niall gasps. His fingers are mostly clutching above the nape of Louis' neck now, his fingertips pressing into his scalp. Louis gives him a thumbs up and sucks harder. Niall says about five curse words at once, his stomach trembling tight. Then his hips are ticking up hard and the car jolts forward once, and there's jizz hitting the back of Louis' throat. He sucks resolutely through it. The idea of spitting it out the window is considered and resolutely dismissed for the safety of the paint job, and he swallows once Niall’s gone still.

Louis feels raw and wired all over when he sits up slowly, his body aching and his erection pressed up tight in his jeans. Niall's got his head tipped back and he shuts his eyes for half a second before exhaling. His hands are half-limp on the steering wheel.

"Fucking hell, Louis," he says emphatically.

Louis grins, kissing Niall's shoulder and the corner of his mouth. "That was wicked," he says. Niall’s wriggling without further precaution back into his basketball shorts. "And we didn't get arrested. That’s good driving, Horan. No hill people for you today. Say, d'you want to keep steering with one hand?" He waggles his eyebrows.

"Oh, right then," Niall laughs as he looks over. But he lets Louis tangle their fingers together and drag Niall’s hand down to his flies.

 

Virginia becomes Tennessee and 81 South turns into 40 West and the sun has tracked high across the sunroof. Niall is eating pretzels as he drives. “Is it sad to leave?” he asks Louis with his mouth full. “New York, I mean.”

“Yeah. I love it there,” Louis says. Conversations like this come easier with Niall than maybe anyone, and he’s relaxed, feet tucked under him in his seat and his head against the window. “But I remembered too many things about Eleanor to want to stay, I think.”

“We were all there too, you know, once upon a time,” Niall says. He’s not sniping, it seems, just trying to be helpful. Louis smiles a little. “But if you’ve got to move, I think you could do worse. Y’know, Lou, it’s cool you’re brave enough to just up and go like this.”

“You’ve spent your last two years doing the same thing.”

“Nah,” Niall scoffs. “I do it ‘cause I’m still a kid. I’ve got to get sorted out.”

Louis nods, eyes on the road. “I feel like a kid,” he says.

“Well, you are,” Niall says. “Just – a kid who’s got his shit together more than me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re living the dream, man.”

“Guess so,” Niall says, mouth twitching in a smile. His voice is heavier than Louis thinks it should be, but he can’t read Niall’s face.

There’s a stretch of silence, punctuated by the roar of a passing truck. Niall’s lips are tucked into a line.

“Hey,” he says eventually. “Not asking, just – kind of wanna know what’s going on with us, here. If you’re – y’know.”

“What?” Louis looks over.

“I guess we talked it over a bit when we were drunk.” Niall’s thumb taps out an arrhythmic beat on the steering wheel. “Rebounding or whatever. I get you need to do what you need to do. But – that is still where you’re at, right?” His voice is casual, but his mouth draws down at the corner for just a moment as he mutters, “Just wanna be sure.”

Louis opens his mouth, and he has no idea, quite suddenly, what the truth is about what they’re doing.

“Yeah,” he says bracingly, after far too long a pause. “It’s just sex, innit?” It feels like such a lie. “Is that shitty?”

"Nah, it's all good," Niall says. He flashes Louis a smile that’s only the tiniest, tiniest bit forced. "Can’t complain, eh?"

 _You could_ , Louis thinks. All at once he’s got no idea what’s going on – thought he didn’t when they were drunk and making out last night, knows he doesn’t now he’s sucked Niall’s dick in the car and they’ve talked about their feelings like it’s all nothing.

It’s not that Louis always gets attached – it’s just that when he starts to wonder where he stands with someone, he can’t stop until he’s messed it up. He’s got no precedent for this, someone easy-going who doesn’t want to ruin good things with significance like that. He’d built up a lot of significance with Harry, bless his heart, and couldn’t handle it in the end, and he’d thought Eleanor was the answer and was wrong just the same.

Niall’s just the old schoolmate, old friend, driving his car with him for a few days. It shouldn’t be complicated, and Niall seems willing to make that so. Louis isn’t quite sure how.

 

Louis gets out a reporter’s notebook from his bag while he waits for Niall to come out of a rest stop bathroom somewhere northeast of Knoxville. Some things feel like they ought to be handwritten, rather than tapped into a phone notepad.

 _Wound up w Haz b/c we didnt know how to stop_ , he writes, then pauses with the tip of his pen to the page. He hopes Niall won’t look over at him – he can’t stop his face from pinching, remembering. _Left b/c it got overwhelming and I thought New York would be different._ He crosses out _different_ and replaces it with _right._

 _Obv wrong,_ he adds, then colors in the spaces in the letters he’s just written, biting his lip. Journaling appeals to him in theory, but whenever he tries it for real he finds he’d rather be talking to someone about whatever he's got on his mind, rather than working it to death all by himself. The plus side of actual journalism – someone out there’s always listening, no matter how banal the thoughts you’re forcing on them.

They’re stuck in traffic later when they hit the city limits, and Louis is chewing on his thumbnail. “Niall, can I ask you,” he says, finding his voice comes out a little croaky. “You were out in Los Angeles after I left, with Harry, right?”

“Yeah.” Niall shoots him a look before setting his eyes back on the cars backed up in front of them.

“What did he say about, about us?”

“Me and you?” Niall asks. Louis doesn’t say anything. “You and him.” Louis nods. Niall tugs his lips into a line again.

“Hm,” he says. “Well, I just think – you're both really intense, you know? We talked a lot about, like, how it wasn’t stable, and you both needed stable or else you’d go mad. I don’t think he really knew that about himself, before you two happened. He was what, 22?”

“I was 24,” Louis mumbles.

The car comes to a full stop for a moment in the traffic jam and Niall looks at him properly.

“I think you’ll be good with someone who makes it so you’re not losing your mind thinking so much about everything,” he says. “Someone you don’t have to talk yourself into. Or out of.”

Louis just stares at him. _Like who?_ he thinks. His chest has gone tight.

The van behind them honks and they both jump a little. Niall turns back to the road.

“Easier said than done, though,” Louis mumbles eventually as the car edges forward.

“Nah,” Niall says. “You think that now. Won’t once you’ve found someone it fits.” After a moment, he reaches over and squeezes Louis’ hand. “You will.” His eyes are wide and earnest as he looks at Louis again. “You deserve it.”

Louis feels a bit bereaved when Niall pulls his hand away. “Ah, Niall,” he murmurs. “you’re a good friend.”

Niall flashes him a smile. “Least I could do, bro,” he says, but it falls flat, and Louis is left with an off sort of feeling, touched and unsettled by the warmth in his stomach, as they crawl through Knoxville and they both have to shut up so Niall can concentrate on driving.

 

Louis falls asleep soon in Farragut 20 minutes later and has weird dreams about the lads and uni and New York that he forgets immediately on waking. The car is stopped and Niall’s shaking him by the knee.

“We’re in Nashville,” he says, beaming. “Wanna get early dinner, and then we can get on to Memphis? I know a place.”

“Kay,” Louis yawns. He squints at Niall’s face, very close to his own. “Where are we?”

Niall laughs. “C’mon, lazy,” he says and hops out of the car. Louis follows suit, stretching as he stands on the sidewalk and stares around. It’s strange to be back in the open air, and it crosses his mind that he’s really, really enjoying spending hours cooped up in his hatchback with just Niall and the American countryside and an abundance of snacks.

Niall takes him to a pub two blocks up, exchanges joyful hellos with the door guy and a couple of regulars and the girl behind the bar while Louis grins, standing to one side.

“Where’ve you been, little leprechaun?” she asks, pinching Niall’s cheek. Her accent is Taylor Swift country, cotton candy-sweet and hopelessly endearing. She’s wearing a black tank top and an apron, blonde hair braided down her back. Niall goes red.

“East Coast,” he says. “Just passing through now, actually. We’re heading to Austin.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks, turning big eyes on Louis.

“Jill, meet Louis. We went to school together,” Niall says. “He’s giving me a ride.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Louis smiles, shaking her hand. She looks amused.

“Joe, it’s the British invasion,” she calls to the bouncer. “Austin, huh? You and Niall starting an indie band or something, Louis?”

Louis laughs. “Something like that,” he says.

“I used to play here sometimes,” Niall tells him.

“Used to!” Jill puts her hands on her hips. “Where’s your guitar? You can’t stop by out of nowhere and not give us a show.” She points at the empty stage – two mics, two stools – in the space against the back wall.

Niall makes a show of dithering about it. The fondness is swelling in Louis’ heart before he even realizes it’s there; it only gets worse when he does.

“Twist my arm, why don’t you,” Niall says finally. “Be right back.” He jingles Louis’ keys in his face, grinning, and darts out of the bar.

Louis hops up on a barstool, contemplating the tap handles Jill’s polishing. It’s still afternoon and it’s a weekday, but there are a decent number of people sitting around.

“I need something really Southern,” he decides after a moment. “I've only lived in New York, and L.A. for a while, I’m not nearly Americanized enough for Texas yet.”

“Niall always used to make me give him Guinness,” she says, laughing. “You get what you want.”

“Budweiser,” he declares, slapping his wallet on the bar. “Bud Heavy. In one of those big cans with the flag on it.”

“You got it,” she says. “But put that away, y’all are all set.”

“What? No, it's alright.”

“Don’t worry about it. On the house for the live entertainment.”

Niall comes back in on cue with his guitar case. He bustles straight to the stage, hip-checking Louis as he passes.

Jill brings him his Guinness while he sets up, and Louis watches him do his thing, sipping his Bud-in-a-can, which tastes rather like water but feels appropriate somehow. It’s odd to think this has been Niall’s life since the last time they saw each other before this trip, that Niall came to know this random American pub and probably countless others like it – all without Louis, without the lads, on his own. It’s not much different from what he’d tried to do while they were in school, but he’s confident with it now, in his element. Grown up just enough.

“Hey, Louis,” Niall says eventually. Louis blinks.

“What?”

“Get over here.” Niall jerks his thumb, smiling. He’s sat on one of the stools, one mic pointed at the body of his acoustic. The other stool and mic are set up beside him.

“Oh,” Louis says. “ _No_.”

“Was it you who was singing YOLO to me earlier, or was that someone else?” Niall muses.

“Traitor!” Louis cries. He stands up, beer in hand, while Jill laughs behind the bar. “You said you’d never reveal my secret.”

“Sing one song with me and I promise, I’ll never speak of it again,” Niall says.

Louis sits gingerly on the stool beside him and sets his hands on the mic, tilting it down to mouth level.

“I’ve not done this in a while,” he murmurs. The noise level in the bar has lowered by half, many of the patrons leaning back in their chairs and out of their booths to watch. Someone whoops Niall’s name and claps and everybody laughs.

“You remember ‘Look After You,' yeah?" Niall asks, quiet and unfazed, gazing up at him.

Louis chuckles, shaking his head. “Yes,” he says. It's a Fray song, had been his to sing while Niall played during jam sessions with the lads in London, the five of them sitting around and talking of being pop stars. “You big sap.”

“Don’t be nervous.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Louis steadies himself on the stool. “Whenever you’re ready, Jimi Hendrix.”

Niall taps out a four-count with his foot and hits the first chords. Louis’ breath so catches in his throat for a second with nostalgia and affection that he almost forgets to come in.

“If I don’t say this now, I will surely break,” he sings, voice a little choked, “as I’m leaving the one I want to take,” and then Niall looks at him for just a second and nods, smiling, and – all at once it’s easy, it’s as if they’d never been apart. As if it’s five years ago in one of their dorm rooms, before Louis felt old and overwrought and as though he’d forgotten how to be happy.

Niall comes in on the _oh_ ’s of the chorus, on the _I’ll look after you_ , making up a quiet harmony as he strums his guitar. Louis’ heart tripping in his chest through the rest of the song couldn’t have less to do with stage fright.

Everyone cheers when they’re done, and Louis hops down off his stool. He touches Niall on the back of his hand where it rests on the side of the guitar, just for a moment, can’t help himself.

“Thanks,” he murmurs.

“My pleasure,” Niall says, staring up at him, flushed and happy. “The great Louis Tomlinson, everybody!” he says to the bar, and Louis gets another cheer.

He watches the rest of Niall’s short, cobbled-together set from his barstool – Jill tells him three songs equals their two beers – and feels a bit like he’s in freefall. He’s incepted himself, is the thing, had known it was coming the moment Niall said _someone you don’t have to talk yourself into_. Because he doesn’t. He never had to at all.

They get burgers afterward and Jill gives Niall another Guinness for free just because she’s so glad to see him. (Louis has offered to designated-drive the three hours remaining to Memphis.) Niall’s riding a low-grade post-performance high, tipsy from his beers after only eating snacks all day. He laughs all the way through dinner and gives both Jill and Joe the door guy big kisses on the cheek before they leave.

“Come back, now,” Jill tells him, smacking his bum. “Don’t make us wait so long next time.”

“I won’t,” Niall says. “I’ll bring this lad with me.” He throws an arm around Louis’ shoulders.

“It was good to meet you,” Louis says to her. “I’ll see you, I reckon.”

“I reckon,” she says in kind, winking. “Drive safe.”

It’s dark when they set off again after stopping for gas, and Niall chatters away about Jill and the bar right up until he crashes and nods off in the passenger’s seat, mouth open and body hanging against his seatbelt. Louis glances at him every few miles. He keeps the stereo off and sings songs by The Fray in his head, The Script, Jack Johnson, everyone they used to listen to in college.

“Wake up,” he murmurs in Niall’s ear three hours later when he’s followed highway signs to another cheap motel on the edge of Memphis. Niall stirs, questing out with sleepy hands and finding the fabric of Louis’ t-shirt.

“Lou?” he murmurs.

“Hi,” Louis whispers. It’s kind of shocking how strong and immediate the urge is to kiss him, but he doesn’t do it. “We’re at the hotel.”

Niall yawns and lets go.

They get another one-bed room (on Louis; Niall bought the gas). Tonight’s different. They’re not drunk, for starters, and Niall’s falling asleep on his feet like a tired-out child, but also Louis has figured some things out today. The sensory deprivation of a long car trip is quite an accelerant for introspection. Niall’s therapist ways don’t hurt, either.

It looks like Niall’s asleep under the covers when Louis gets out of the bathroom, but as he clambers in beside him Niall rolls over to look at him. “I miss making music with you,” he mumbles.

“Yeah,” Louis says. He touches Niall on the tip of the nose. “I miss a lot of stuff about when we used to do that.”

“You don’t have to,” Niall murmurs. “Just have it back now.”

Louis huffs a laugh through his nose. “Easier said than done,” he says.

“You can’t say that about everything, Tommo,” Niall says. “Some stuff you’ve just gotta _do_.”

Louis thinks about that, and thinks that the thinking is a bit ironic, and then he stretches forward and kisses Niall lightly on the lips. His hand finds Niall’s hip, settles in the soft dip of his side beneath his shirt, and then he pulls back.

Niall stares at him, breathing shallowly through his slightly open mouth.

“Good night,” he whispers eventually. Louis strokes his side.

“Good night,” he says, just as quiet. They fall asleep with a few inches between them, face to face, anchored by Louis’ hand on Niall’s side beneath the sheets. Louis looks as long as he can before his eyes slip closed.

 

Niall’s not saying much the next morning as they pack up and do the McDonald's breakfast thing again and cross the border into Arkansas.

“Bill Clinton’s from this state,” Louis says. “He was the one with the blowjobs.”

Niall laughs, though not as much as Louis had expected.

“Seems like a shitty state,” Louis comments, glancing at Niall. “Don’t get the name at all, Ar-Kansas.” Niall nods with his eyes turned out the window.

Louis has a feeling he knows what’s going on. He himself is ignoring what happened last night because he doesn’t know how to broach the subject of it. Niall is a far too good a person to act like that.

“What’s up, Nialler,” he asks after a while. He means to make it casual, but it comes out as the familiar, gentle question.

Niall looks over at him. “You said you were rebounding.” His tone is soft but carrying in the small space between them “That it was just sex.”

“I know.” Louis stares at the horizon.

“You lied,” Niall prompts after a moment.

Louis gnaws on his lower lip. “I hadn’t worked it out yet,” he says, “what it was.”

“Are you overthinking again?” The beginnings of a smile are trembling across Niall’s mouth.

“You know me,” Louis says, winking, and leaves it at that. He turns on the stereo when Niall doesn’t say anything else. It’s the mix with The Lumineers on it again, the one they’d listened to leaving New York – _I belong with you, you belong with me_. Louis’ head feels perfectly clear. He rests the hand he’s not steering with on the gearshift, singing under his breath.

After a while Niall rests his own hand on top of it, sliding his fingers between Louis’. They break off and on to drink their coffee and eat hashbrowns and fight over the CD changer and have dance parties, but otherwise their fingers are laced straight on through to Texarkana, past a sign that says: Dallas – 175 miles.

 

They've lapsed into quiet again by the time they get through Mt. Pleasant. "Alright, what now?" Louis asks. "Are we about to have another serious talk?"

“Maybe," Niall says. He's biting his lip in concentration as he frowns out at the flat, sparse horizon. "I'm trying to think of an ‘everything’s bigger in Texas’ joke." 

“Something about dicks,” Louis advises.

“Mhm, mhm.” Niall nods seriously. “Go on.”

“Everything’s bigger in Texas… so I'll fit right in.” Louis thrusts his hips up beneath his seatbelt, grinning.

“Ah, fuck.” Niall’s snorting with laughter. “I shouldn’t have asked for your help, now it’s your joke.”

“Keep it. First one’s on the house. Car. Whatever.”

He can feel Niall’s eyes on the side of his face, and he turns for a moment. “What?”

The corner of Niall’s mouth ticks up. “Just looking at you.”

Louis isn’t used to being the one who blushes. Niall brings that out in him, brings things out he hasn’t felt in a really long time, maybe ever. It’s different looking at someone with new eyes like this when you're a little more grown up. Realizing there still are possibilities if you’ve got the right person with you. 

He reaches over and touches Niall’s cheek, thumbs at his ear, tugs on a bit of his hair above it. Niall hunches his shoulders, demurring with a flush and crinkling eyes.

“Could we pull over?” he asks. “It’s just I’d really like to be making out with you right now.”

It startles a laugh out of Louis. “We’ve only about an hour and a half to go.”

“Good.” Niall stretches with a strangled noise of pleasure, arching his back out against the seatbelt. Louis looks appraisingly at his shirt riding up.

“You do wanna stop in Dallas still?" Niall asks.

"What, or just – sally forth to Austin, or what is it they say around here?"

“Giddy-up?” It sounds ridiculous in his accent and they both giggle. “Ah, I hope they like me,” Niall clasps his hands at his cheek. “Never been this Irish this far south in America before.”

“I think being British next to you down here is probably one up for me on being British with Eleanor in New York, if it makes you feel better.”

Niall frowns. “Hey, can I ask you – you’re not gonna, like.” He stops, chewing around the words.

“Out with it.” Louis can guess the general topic of what he’s going to hear, but he’d rather Niall stop struggling than have to suffer through thinking about it. That’s progress, maybe.

“You won’t be done with me as soon as you’ve gotten over her, yeah?” Niall says in a tripping rush after a moment. “Or, be done with – whatever this is.”

“I've told you," Louis murmurs. “You’re not a rebound, Niall.”

“I believe you,” Niall says quietly. Louis darts a glance over his features, open, forgiving. “But I wouldn’t mind hearing you keep saying it.”

“You’re not,” Louis promises. “I’ve just got out of a two-year sham of a relationship that started as a rebound, I know what it’d look like.”

“It wasn’t a sham,” Niall says. “Don’t say that. It just – wasn’t right.”

“You know what it was?” Louis’ mouth twists as he bites the inside of his lip. “It was me running away from L.A. because I was freaked out and I wanted to be somewhere I knew and I felt like I had to get this job the way I’d imagined it and, like, put down roots and all that, and I remembered her being nice, and she remembered me, and she liked me, and we just…" He swallows. "It was just easier, it was, like, a default.”

“Were you happy?”

“Yeah,” Louis murmurs. “On the surface. Not when I really thought about it.” Niall’s just listening, his breathing a quiet familiarity in their lived-in little space in the car, so Louis says, “I think the thing with me – I mean, with Eleanor, God, even with Haz in a way – is that it all seemed like it was _supposed_ to be good. Like if I tried it for long enough, it would be what would actually be good for me, or else I’d be smart enough to get out of it.”

Niall clucks softly.

“But I never knew how to do that.” Louis blinks across at him.

“Always tried so hard, our Lou,” Niall says. Louis huffs out a laugh.

“Never knew ‘til now,” he appends. Niall turns and looks out the window, but Louis can see him grinning in the reflection. 

It’s then that he realizes something and feels like a total arse.

“Hey, I never asked about you. Jesus Christ. I mean, these past few years…” he trails off with an abortive gesture. Niall gets the idea.

“Eh, you know,” he says. He’s still struggling to school his features and it’s making Louis’ chest hurt again, so he trains his eyes far out on the flat horizon. It’s not close to sunset yet, but the light’s heading that way. “I’ve kept busy.”

“Boys or girls?”

“Both,” Niall says airily. 

"Equal opportunist," Louis smirks. 

Niall ignores him. “Latest was I tried to date Jill for a few weeks, before we both realized how fucking silly that was.”

“Jill in Nashville?! You did not.”

“Did too! I’m taking that as you’re impressed rather than surprised, by the way.”

“If it helps,” Louis says, or tries to say, he’s laughing so hard. “Oh, god. That _is_ silly. She's way too cool for you.”

Niall punches him in the thigh and they scuffle for a moment, causing the car to weave onto the rumble strip. “But nothing serious, if that’s what you’re asking,” Niall says when they've settled down. “I guess nothing much has felt right what with how much I move around and stuff. Didn’t seem worth the trouble.”

Louis smiles down at the steering wheel. He hopes there’s an unspoken _‘til now_ in that sentence, too.

“To answer your question, though,” Louis says with a slight cough, “yes, I still think we ought to stop in Dallas, mostly since I can’t sweep you off to my sublet the moment we get to Austin.”

Niall looks extremely pleased. “I’ll find a place to stay,” he says, poking his tongue inside his cheek so it bulges out, waggling his eyebrows. “Ooh, and a restaurant. A bar! Both, maybe, who knows.”

He goes to work at his mobile, smile lit by the glow of the screen and the sun in front of their windshield. Louis considers his aforementioned sublet, and whatever Niall’s situation is, and whether he ought to be thinking more about the possibilities therein. In the end he decides it’ll happen how it’s meant to.

 

The car is a filthy wreck inside by the time they crawl their way into downtown Dallas, has really crossed the threshold from bits of wrappers and napkins stashed in the cupholders to trash strewn around the backseat and in the footwells, like a proper road trip. Niall picks some of it up when they get out of the car a block down from the hotel and chucks it in a bin they pass as they walk, his backpack slung low on his back.

Louis hooks an arm around Niall’s shoulders and pulls him into a stumbling headlock. They ignore the looks they get from passing strangers, but Louis thinks distantly that it’ll be nice to be in Austin, where, as far as he’s read, _their_ sort of thing is far more rote than in the rest of this strange, huge state. 

It’s an odd prospect to be nearly there, though, because for all Louis' dismissal of living situations and what they’ll do now they’ve got this, et cetera – he is wondering, just anticipating, kind of. It’s not an unpleasant feeling, waiting to see what he and Niall turn into without picking it to death trying to predict. That's new for him.

Niall’s picked a Marriott downtown, a step up from the past two nights in honor of it being their last. It’s nice enough that the person checking them in shows admirable restraint when they ask for just one bed as usual – that is to say, some silent judgment, but no open commentary or leading inquiries of “you sure?” Louis hands the man his debit card, and Niall hands Louis some twenties.

It’s immediately clear upon their arrival in their room that they aren’t going out for dinner. Niall grabs his wrist as soon as the door is locked and bolted behind them, smiling and blushing furiously. He tugs the bags out of Louis' hands and drops them on the floor, takes the sunglasses off his head and sets them on the desk. 

His eyes stay on Louis as he bends to kick his shoes off, maddeningly slow. Louis waits. A laugh threatens to bubble up in his throat but he bites it back, holding Niall's gaze.

Niall pulls him in once it's all done, and when he kisses him he's smiling so much that his lips catch Louis' at a toothy angle. "Fucking finally," Louis mumbles into his mouth, wraps his arms around Niall and kisses him wide open and giddy. He clutches at the back of his shirt, fitting himself into the space Niall's slight height advantage creates so that they're flush together. 

Niall steps on his toes in socked feet and they stumble until they bump into the desk chair, then, ricocheting, into the corner of the bed. 

They're a mess as they fall and Niall ends up on top, licking eagerly into Louis' mouth as they work their way fully up onto the mattress. Niall's callused fingertips worm beneath Louis' shirt, holding him between his palms like he means to manhandle but can't quite hack it, which is adorable, and hot. Louis' hands are in his hair, on the side of his jaw, his legs crooked around Niall's to keep them together. Judging by the sounds he's making, Niall is very overwhelmed. He hangs his head for a moment when he breaks apart from Louis' mouth to catch his breath, panting and whining obscenities as Louis rolls his hips up. 

"Lou," Niall breathes out, bracing on one hand with his weight against Louis, his free hand roving across the flat plane of Louis' trembling stomach beneath his shirt as Louis fucks his hips up in random little circles to get them both hard. He watches Niall's face, the swimmy grey-blue of his eyes standing out against his ruddy face. His hair still looks okay, though, and that won't do at all. Louis runs both his hands through it, tugging and mussing until Niall gives a frustrated little growl and dips his head to kiss him again, messy with his tongue against the side of Louis', sucking on his lower lip. 

"Can you wait on dinner, then?" Louis asks when they come up for air again. His voice is hoarse. 

Niall laughs and starts to go, "Yeah, for once I–" and Louis takes advantage of the distraction to tighten the brace of his thighs around Niall's and flip them, or try to. His limbs aren't cooperating all that well after so many hours in the car. 

After a bit of flailing he ends up astride Niall's hips with Niall flat on his back, and he towers upward over him, smirking. 

"Good," he says, tugging off his shirt, "'cause we're gonna work up an appetite." 

"Oh my god." Niall throws an arm across his eyes. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Me either," Louis murmurs, moving his hips in seeking little thrusts forward and to the side against Niall's until he feels the angle go right, the trapped heat of his dick in his jeans slotting roughly against Niall's tenting up in his shorts. "God," he grunts, "why didn't we take off our fucking clothes?" Niall tries to laugh but it gets caught up in a gasp when Louis arches his back, working his lower lip between his teeth. Niall thrusts up to meet him. 

Louis always liked being on top, was kind of envious of Eleanor when she would ride him. But it's a passing thought, because Niall's hands are on his hips, blunt nails digging into the soft of Louis' sides and pulling him in and down, and this is what matters, what's happening now, what he feels like he's wanted all along.

"Should get 'em off now, though," he adds when all they're doing is rutting against each other, too hot and too much friction. Niall nods rapidly. He's wriggling out of his shirt before Louis has even sat back between his knees to unbutton his jeans. 

Something heavy and intoxicating settles in Louis' stomach once they're both naked, Niall with his knees spread, staring at Louis between them. He's flushed all the way down his chest, over his nipples, his dick bobbing between his legs. Louis curls his knees beneath him and gives a predatory smile. He flicks his tongue over his lower lip.

"I can't decide what I want to do first," he says quietly. It's less sexy than how he'd heard it in his head, sounds more like an admission. Niall's eyebrows knit together. 

"C'mere," he murmurs. He scoots back against the headboard and Louis crawls between his legs, aware suddenly that his heart is pounding in his chest, of how sober they are, and then aware of nothing except Niall's fingers wrapped around his cock and Niall's wet mouth on the side of his neck. The heat of him is everywhere in the muffled quiet of the room. 

"Shit, yeah, Ni," Louis breathes. He's vaulted up on his knees, heels beneath his arse, and he pushes up into Niall's hand and forward. Niall's fingers work over Louis' side, grasping, pulling him in. Louis kisses over Niall's cheek and rests his forehead against Niall's shoulder, eyes closed, clutching at his biceps and humming high in his throat. 

Niall's lips are in his hair. "Look so good, Lou," he mumbles. He thumbs his own cock against Louis' in the curl of his fist, smearing precome down from the tip and working it between them until their skin is a little slicker and he can jack them together properly. It's languid and aimless and syrup-sweet in a way Louis has never had before – something that takes its time. He clings onto Niall, giving a singular, sharp moan when Niall twists his fist and then thumbs up under the head of Louis' cock. 

"Hey," Louis says to him, voice high and thready, "hey, I want to ride you." He puts his hands on Niall's shoulders, thighs beginning to tremble with the effort of staying almost crouched. "Can I?"

"Shit, yeah, what're you asking me for?" Niall's hand stalls on Louis' cock and his own; he flexes his fingers absently, and Louis groans through his teeth. 

"There's a condom in my wallet." He eases himself back and stands up. "Oh, you don't have anything passing for lube in that infinite backpack of yours, do you?"

"Wouldn't be very infinite if I didn't, would it?" Niall snickers like this makes much sense at all, flinging himself across the bed on his side to reach for his pack on the floor. 

When they come back together, Louis straddles Niall at the top of his thighs, grins cheekily downward as he rolls the condom onto him, then stops.

"D'you wanna," he waggles his fingers, "or."

"I wanna watch," Niall says. He's a little breathless, but he has not an ounce of shame as he stares up at Louis' bare torso. Louis looks down, follows Niall's eyes across the curve of his waist and the lines of his hipbones, his dick flushed and hard, bobbing above Niall's. 

"Not here for your viewing pleasure," Louis says amiably. 

Niall makes a face like he's not sure about that, then laughs, rubbing his hands up and down Louis' taut thighs. "Go on," he murmurs. 

Louis wets his lips. Niall's given him a little tube of something and he spills a bit of it onto his fingers, letting out a breath. It's not like nothing's gone on back there in two-plus years, but still. Niall's hands move to his arse, spreading it and pulling him forward, and Louis tips his forehead against Niall's and reaches back. 

The lube is cold against his rim, and he huffs out a breath as he touches himself, circling with a fingertip and then working it inside. He squirms, brow furrowed. Niall's eyes are on his face, and when Louis looks at him he tips his chin up for a kiss. His fingers knead into Louis' skin, encouraging, and Louis pushes deeper into himself, working knuckle by knuckle. He closes his eyes and focuses on the feeling. 

Niall's hips tick up beneath him and Louis huffs as he brushes his prostate, then again as he rubs his finger over it now he's found it, lips brushing forward over the corner of his mouth. 

"How does it feel?"

"Tight." Louis almost whimpers it, sliding his finger nearly all the way out of himself and then back in, rolling his hips, searching for a good angle. He presses a second fingertip inside, squirming in Niall's lap. Niall's propped halfway up on the pillows and the headboard to look.

"Fuck, I wanna see," Niall mouths into his jaw. "No, wait." He lets go of Louis' hips and Louis sags a little, hadn't even realized Niall had been holding him in place. Niall picks up the lube that Louis had set aside and squeezes some onto his fingers. Then he reaches back, hunching closer to Louis' space to reach, and a moment later Louis' feels his hand, his blunt fingertip alongside Louis' own. 

"Fuck," Louis groans, "Niall." He bears down as Niall presses into him, the stretch on three fingers between them filling him up, hot and overwhelming, making his head swim. 

"Yeah?" Niall asks. He fucks his fingers into Louis on short strokes, and Louis moves his hand too, wrist aching from the angle, feeling his knuckles pressed tight to Niall's. 

"Yeah," he says, "oh, my god." 

"You think you're ready?" Niall's mouth is against Louis' collarbone. He's all breath when he speaks, his dick hard against his belly in the condom. 

Louis raises up slowly, sighing at the sudden emptiness when he pulls out his fingers and so does Niall. He likes letting Niall take the lead, likes when he can let go almost completely. He puts a little more lube in his palm and slicks it along Niall’s cock. He wants to touch himself, too, just a bit to tide him over, but as soon as he drops his hand, Niall’s grabbing his wrist.

“No you don’t,” he says, wagging his finger and grinning. 

“Oh, is that right?” Louis tweaks one of his nipples and Niall squirms under him, laughing. “Fuck, okay.” 

He leans forward, up on his knees, reaching around to hold Niall’s dick under himself. Then he sinks down until he feels the head press against him, slippery and fat. He rotates his hips. Niall’s hands are on the small of his back, thumbs stroking over the sides of Louis’ waist. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth hard when his cock finally pushes into Louis. 

“Yeah, shit.” His eyes are on the place between them where they meet. “You are tight, Tommo.” 

Louis is rolling his hips down, bracing himself with one hand on Niall’s shoulder. It’s almost too much, the burn of it, feeling impossibly full, but he keeps going anyway, lifting up and pushing down further until he’s almost bottomed out across Niall’s lap. 

He lets out the rest of a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when he stills and just looks down at Niall, grinning.

“Hey, man,” he says.

“Oh god, Louis,” Niall groans, and he grabs at Louis’ back and one of his shoulders, pulling him down to kiss him, messy and frantic, losing all semblance of composure. Louis responds to it without even thinking, fingers digging into Niall’s shoulders as he kisses him back, just rolling his hips forward rather than lifting off at all so that he can stay close to him. His thighs are quivering with the exertion, and Niall’s useless beneath him, seems to have gone to some other place where he can’t really remain a coherent participant. Louis shivers with pleasure, realizing all the new things he’s learning about this boy.

“Did you ever think about this,” he murmurs into Niall’s ear, leaning forward so he can lift up, holding the headboard now with one hand, “about fucking me, us in bed together? When we were in London?”

“All the time,” Niall blurts. Louis sits back slightly to look at him.

“Really?”

Niall’s face flames up impossibly pink. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re so gorgeous, I – I always,” but the words fall apart out of his mouth as Louis tilts his hips in a little circle. 

“You had – a crush on me,” Louis says gleefully. His breath catches like a hiccup in the middle as he feels the head of Niall’s dick rub up hard over his prostate, but he gets his point across.

“Don’t say crush. That’s not sexy.” Niall nips at his mouth, finding the wherewithal now to buck his hips up a little in time to the pace Louis is setting.

“I think it’s incredibly sexy,” Louis says. Niall pulls him down hard for that, hands going tight at his hips, and Louis yelps. “Shit, can you, like.” He puts both hands on the headboard, leaning forward until he can feel Niall’s hair tickling his skin. “Please – I need—”

Niall’s fingers brush over Louis’ cock. “This?” he asks. Louis practically sobs. “Oh, that seems to be—” Niall starts, mocking, but Louis lifts up and nearly slams back down to shut him up. “Okay, okay,” Niall gasps, and starts to move his hand. 

The slap of skin on skin is loud, suddenly, all Louis’ senses going taut, and he knows he’s close. “Just,” he bounces in Niall’s lap, sparks shooting up his calves as Niall jerks him off, “just a little—”

Niall tips his mouth up to catch Louis’ then, haphazard, his teeth scraping over Louis’ lower lip, and that’s what does Louis in. He moans Niall’s name into his mouth, loud, not caring, his belly going tight and everything hitting dizzying hot pitch for a long, suspended moment as he comes. Niall kisses him through it, keeps his hand working over Louis’ dick, keeps fucking him, barely slows for a second. 

Louis can feel, distantly, the way Niall’s hips are getting more erratic beneath him, but eerything is sticky and sluggish, and he stares for a long, brainless moment at his come striped up Niall’s stomach. He draws a thumb through it, smearing it on Niall’s skin. 

“C’mon, babe,” he mumbles into Niall’s mouth. Niall tips his head back, gasping, bucking up under Louis. Louis rolls his whole body forward from the hips, finds what might be Niall’s pulse point in his neck and attaches his mouth to it, sucking hard, flicking his tongue. 

Niall almost thrashes beneath him when he comes, would probably throw them both right off the bed if not for the weight of Louis on him. Louis feels it through the sensory haze that’s his whole body right now, the twitch of Niall’s dick inside him as it happens, and he sighs, shivering, into Niall’s neck. 

“I’m sorry,” Louis says once they’ve both stilled, “but I think my legs are stuck like this forever.”

“Fuck,” Niall draws out. He grasps Louis’ hips and helps him lift up. They’re both comically weak and jelly-limbed, and Louis’ legs are on fire when he collapses to the side. He won’t walk right for days. 

“Jesus fuck,” Niall adds, on second thought. Louis just nods. Niall rolls the condom off gingerly, ties it and chucks it in the direction of the bin. “That was,” he says, and apparently that’s all he’s got. 

“I thought about it too, you know,” Louis says after a moment. His voice is husky. He stretches out on his back atop the covers, wincing as the abused muscles in his thighs unfurl. 

“What?”

“You,” Louis says, rolling on his side and smiling. “This. Back in school. Whenever I really, like, let my guard down, when I wasn’t thinking, I always thought of you.” 

“Is that a good thing?”

Louis considers. “I think so, yeah.” 

“Just sex?” Niall asks. He grabs a tissue off the bedside table and wipes his stomach off, then rolls over to face Louis, resting a hand on his side and stroking up. “Or… I dunno.” He looks away, suddenly shy. 

“I don’t think I thought about much of anything else with anyone,” Louis says. It’s only a little bit a lie, and Niall laughs, meeting his eyes again. “But if I had, it suppose it would’ve been with you.”

Niall’s hand stills on his side. 

“Louis,” he murmurs.

“It’s okay,” Louis says, instead of what he’s thinking, which is _thank you_ – for something, for he doesn’t know exactly what.

They just stare at each other for a moment, the air going still and warm, before Louis says, “D’you still want to eat?”

“Jesus Christ.” Niall bursts out laughing. “I literally forgot. You made me forget I was hungry. It must be love.”

“Must be,” Louis agrees, a grin spreading irrepressibly across his face. He rolls over and grabs the room service menu off the other table. They both seem to tacitly agree that there’s no need to address out loud what was just said. 

 

Austin feels impossibly far the next morning when all Louis would really like to do is stay in the huge, comfy hotel bed with Niall draped against his back, but he thinks he ought to make a vague effort to show up at his sublet, like, this month, so they grab continental breakfast – Niall puts five bagels and little tubs of cream cheese into the empty outside pocket of his backpack – and drag themselves to the car. 

It’s three hours straight south down 35 under a blinding, arid sun. Niall drives, sticking his hand out the window and skipping it along the updrafts of dry heat like a little kid. Louis gets his laptop out as they pass through Waco to try and figure out how to write a blog post summing all this shit up. 

“You writing another thing?” Niall asks, looking over. “Is it gonna be about me?”

“No,” Louis says. Niall reaches over and mushes some cheerful gibberish out with one hand as he drives, like a cat pawing for attention. “I’m a serious journalist. Get off my keyboard.” He picks up Niall’s hand and chews on his fingers.

“I think it should be about me,” Niall says. “The headline can be, like, ‘breaking news, Niall Horan is awesome.’” 

“Stop the presses,” Louis mutters, grinning. He gnaws on his thumbnail, staring at the screen. It’s hard to figure out what the lede is, honestly. He thinks about what he wrote before he set off – seeing the landscape, eating like shit, his general expectations of what a Texan is like. He’d written it before he’d known Niall was coming. Now it’s hard to remember any part of the trip that doesn’t feature him, even the stuff he’s already jotted down, like Applebee’s, like shitty motels and big wide horizons. 

In the end it turns into a sappy sort of thing about how weird it can be to move – double when it’s under unplanned circumstances, triple in a foreign country – and how having friends, even just one, along with you is the best thing you can do to make it easier. Part distraction, part co-pilot, maybe a bit of home. He doesn’t mention specific people for any part of it, but he thinks it’s relatable, the kind of thing his editor wants because it gets a lot of play on Facebook or whatever. And he thinks that Niall will like it. That’s what counts. 

 

Niall’s record producer friend lives smack in the middle of Austin’s hipster epicenter, of course. He tells Niall on the phone that he’s home and to come on over. They drive over the river and into the south side of downtown, which almost looks odd in the daytime – one of those places, like some L.A. and New York neighborhoods Louis has known, that seem as though they’re meant to exist only on a hot night with strings of lights and music from every doorway and whiskey drunk outdoors. A lot of the bars are closed, though they look like they’d be cool, and there are dudes in colorful shorts and Toms walking around to what are probably Cool Digital Media jobs. Louis’ people.

They double park outside the guy’s building. Niall turns to look at Louis. 

“I’m gonna bring my shit in,” he says, “and I’ll come back out.”

“Okay,” Louis says. He rounds the car to the driver’s seat when Niall gets out and watches him heft most of his luggage up into the entry stairway and out of sight. His knee is jiggling of its own accord in the footwell. 

Niall comes back down in a while. “He was in the middle of exporting something, or… something, but he says we should go out on 6th Street later. I think it’s somewhere cool. Wants to talk about the indie band I told him we were forming.” 

Louis throws his head back laughing. “Yeah,” he says, “cheers.” He dithers for a moment, then puts his hazards on and gets out of the car.

“Thanks for the ride,” Niall says. He’s grinning and squinting, and Louis can’t tell what’s behind it. 

“Thanks for the company,” Louis says, smiling off-kilter. 

“Are we gonna do something embarrassing now?”

“It’s quite possible,” Louis says. “Though – keep Austin weird, or whatever they say.”

“I can do that,” Niall says. He reaches for Louis’ belt loops and pulls him in just for a hug for a long moment, tucking his chin down onto Louis’ shoulder. Louis shuts his eyes. His chest hurts, tight and closed up, and he realizes that Niall smells like the inside of the car, the same as Louis does. He swallows hard and feels it all the way down his throat. 

“Hey,” Niall says when Louis pulls back. “Hey! None of that.” 

“I’ve no idea what you mean,” Louis says. “Now come here.” 

He kisses Niall in broad daylight, easily, like they’ve always been together. He doesn’t think he feels any judgmental stares, thinks that’s part of why he wanted to come here, in the back of his mind – but if there are any it doesn’t matter. Niall’s smile is huge and ridiculous when they break apart. 

“Let me know your address,” he says. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. And he’s so, so happy, all of a sudden. This is his life now. “See you soon.” 

Niall watches him go from the curb, waving like a madman. Louis has to head north to get toward the UT campus, which means doubling back a bit, but it’s no trouble. 

 

***

Liam gets married under a white tent in Danielle’s mum’s backyard four months later. Louis and Niall had planned to go the whole thing telling everyone they really were in a band now back in Texas, but it backfires when Liam starts asking them why they hadn’t volunteered to play the wedding. 

“Too dubstep for your parents,” Zayn suggests, and Niall and Louis laugh it off and leave it at that.

“How come you’ve not got accents now?” Harry asks, all west coast slow. So far, Louis has really liked being halfway in between the ceaseless bustle of New York and the impractical chillness of California. Austin is full of people calling themselves writers and musicians who actually just want to drink. It’s hip and careless and energetic, and so is Niall, and it’s perfect for them. 

“Say something Texan,” Liam demands, tilting his champagne flute at them. They’re standing in a circle beside the dance parquet. It’s wonderfully familiar, like nothing’s changed, or only the right things have. Now when Louis looks at Harry the feeling he gets is an old one, a distant, thoughtful ache that he’s learning to respect. He thinks Niall taught him that, to look at those feelings and just take them as they are. 

Niall’s looking at him expectantly. 

“Howdy, y’all,” Louis intones in exactly his normal voice, tipping an imaginary ten-gallon hat. Everybody laughs, but Niall laughs hardest. 

Danielle appears at Liam’s arm, radiant in her white dress. “Uh oh,” Liam says. “I’m being pulled.” 

Danielle smiles. “Excuse me, boys,” she says, tugging him toward the dance floor.

“You’re excused,” Harry calls belatedly after them. 

“Look at him in his vest and his boutonnière,” Zayn says, shaking his head fondly after the newlyweds.

“All his Michael Bublé dreams achieved.” Louis watches Liam and Danielle start to swing dance. “Bless him.”

“Hey, c’mon,” Niall says, grabbing Louis’ wrist. “Let’s give ‘em a run for their money.” 

“I’m being pulled,” Louis says to Zayn and Harry, grinning. Zayn gives an approving, fatherly nod and takes Louis’ champagne glass. 

Harry just smiles, a little smile, a nice one. “Go on, then,” he tells them, and they go.

“We ought to square dance,” Niall says as he and Louis weave through the wedding guests. 

“Niall, I love you, but we don’t know how to square dance.” 

Niall gives him a loud, wet smooch on the cheek. “We’ll figure it out,” he says, and he pulls Louis by the hand onto the dance floor.


End file.
